A Heist Story

Other books by Ellen Simpson

The Light of the World

Prelude

Wei, at the moment when it all began

The first drop fell quietly, then another, and another. Falling from long-pregnant clouds, bursting forth into downpour in the gray of dawn. Through a crack in the window, the steady fall of rain filled the room, only to be drowned out by the shrill beep of a phone. In the quiet, dark space that existed between the waking and the dream worlds, two figures lay curled together in a bed too small for their togetherness. Bodies nestled under thick blankets against the just-spring chill and the ever-present edges of the bed. The window looked out over a mist-laden haze of rooftops toward the center of London.

Wei Topeté woke with a headache. Sleep clung to her like mud. The lull of the rain pulled her back to dozing just as strongly as the shrill beeping of her phone had her grinding her teeth in irritation. Who could possibly want to speak to her at this hour? Speaking of…what even was the hour? Wei rolled over and tugged her phone from its charger. She ran a hand over her face, exhaustion pressing into her on all sides. It had been a long night already. Too long. Sitting up late. Obsessing over uncontrollable details.

The screen’s glow hurt her eyes in the darkness of the not-yet-dawn. LePage was calling. Wei scowled at the screen. He was in the States; it was the middle of the night there. Had something happened? Had LePage finally gone off the deep end and forgotten everything she’d told him about how this was supposed to work? There were rules in the game they played, levels of secrecy set up to provide plausible deniability should anyone try to dig deeper than the surface of their investigation. They had one chance, one, and if LePage screwed it up by harassing her at stupid o’clock in the morning—Wei stopped herself.

Kat would wake up if Wei didn’t answer the phone. She was a heavy sleeper, but her waking was, at this juncture, the last thing Wei wanted. She sat up, hissing in displeasure as her feet hit the icy floor. Her sleepshirt was short, barely skirting the tops of her thighs. Gooseflesh rolled up her legs in a steady wave that left her wanting for the warm bed. With a quiet curse, she pulled the throw blanket from the end of the bed around her. She did not want to talk to LePage.

This’d better be good.

Rain was pooling on the windowsill, the sheer white curtains blowing back into the room, ghostlike in in the cold spring breeze.

He’s dead, Topeté. LePage’s voice drifted through the fog, full of static as it came across the ocean. He sounded rough, like a night on the town was only just ending for him, echoing in the tiredness of his voice and the fearful, almost apologetic way he spoke. Yesterday at noon. I only just heard.

Wei frowned, her fingers twitching at her side. She’d chased him for months, knowing full well that it was only a matter of time until his terminal prognosis took hold and the answers Wei needed fell into her lap. She’d meticulously planned each detail of this moment, down to the final coup de grâce, when he would be dead, and his secrets would be the property of the American government and set to be graciously loaned to her. The pieces were moving now, the plan starting to come together.

And his estate?

LePage heaved a weary sigh. Gone.

A chill shot up Wei’s spine, settling at the back of her neck. She rubbed at it and exhaled. This wasn’t good. She glanced over to the bed, looking for confirmation, but her companion slept on. Could she have known and simply not mentioned it? Was this the moment their fragile truce finally fell apart?

Gone? What do you mean, gone? Her accent grew more pronounced, the French vowels coming fully into her voice as her displeasure mounted. It couldn’t be gone, not when they’d worked so hard for so long to find it and ensure the circumstances of its resurfacing ended up in their favor. That was all that we asked of you.

I know.

You were supposed to watch him. He wasn’t meant to get to a lawyer.

I know.

The repetition was grating.

It was raining harder now. Wei pushed the window closed, and the wind lashed heavy droplets against the pane. Wei choked down her disappointment. What were they going to do now? What could they do but start again, tracking down the lawyer and the—it didn’t do to think of it now, not before a few more hours of sleep or a large cup of coffee. She pressed her fingers to the cool glass, staring out at the bleak dawn. Where is Mock’s estate? She leaned against the damp windowsill, phone cradled between her shoulder and ear. She could see Kat this way. She could watch for warning signs.

Kat stirred as LePage spoke. A fond smile drifted across Wei’s face as Kat pulled a pillow over her head and grumbled about the early hour. This was how Wei liked Kat, when the masks fell away and there was nothing left but the ease of sleepy touches. Kat was not often like this, which made this conversation a risk Wei could not afford to take. Especially not now, when they were so close to the end of Wei’s next play.

Do you have an address for the lawyer? LePage grunted the affirmative. Wei stared at Kat’s still form, deciding. Could she risk this move so soon? Would it be safe? Would Kat see through the flimsy excuses already tasting sour on Wei’s tongue? She could not afford a slip, not on an investigation of this magnitude. LePage coughed. Wei bit her lip, coming to a decision. Call the office.

You’re going in? It’s five-thirty in the morning.

Did she assign you to me so that you could question my decisions?

Well, LePage started. No, I don’t suppose she did.

Exactly.

Okay, fine, I’ll send it in.

When she hung up, Wei turned to see Kat sitting up in the middle of the bed. Words filtered forward, statements of mourning and grief, words that should be said when one loses a dear friend and mentor. But the secrets living between them were such that those words stuck to the roof of Wei’s mouth. All she could do was crawl back into bed and pull Kat’s sleep-warm body back under the blankets and pretend the world they carved for each other in this apartment was enough.

They clung to each other, no words were spoken. Wei felt sick, her stomach roiling when Kat kissed the skin where her neck met her shoulder. Kat’s touch was gentle, her eyes full of warmth. Wei could not look at her. This could be the last time.

Part One

The Mastermind, at Conception

Chapter 1

Marcey, Going Visiting

From where it sat, half-forgotten beside her mouse, Marcey’s phone buzzed. She glanced down at it out of habit before her eyes flicked back up to her computer, only to have her attention instantly drawn back down again, surprised by the name flashing across the screen.

New Facebook message from: Rebecca Johnson.

Becks? she muttered. Disbelief washed over her. She hadn’t heard from Rebecca in years—not since her high school graduation when Rebecca had been allowed to walk despite finishing the school year in treatment for a pill habit. A pill habit that Marcey might have enabled. A lot. It had been a particularly miserable time for Marcey: facing down the failure that could have decided her future and the acute loss of her best friend, absent from the proceedings when Rebecca was allowed to be present.

Marcey slid her finger over the screen, taking in the messaging app and the note that followed. Rebecca Johnson had grown into a looker, still rail thin and looking as though sleep was an elusive thing for her. But it wasn’t her picture, or her arms wrapped around some girl who wasn’t Marcey, that caught Marcey’s attention. It was the content of her message.

Rebecca: Hey Marcey—long time no talk! I can’t believe where the years have gone. I looked you up the other day, curious as to what happened to you. Imagine my surprise to find you working for your mom. I would have assumed you’d be off saving the world or something…

Marcey stopped reading. The or something had a particular bite. She knew where Rebecca thought she should be. Marcey wasn’t going to bother responding. It wasn’t worth it. The you should be dead, was implied. Or, she supposed, the message could have read: You could be locked away for getting someone killed that Rebecca wasn’t saying. Well, it was a timeworn hypothesis. Marcey’d heard it for years. She’d gotten out of that life. Too smart to run with a gang, too stupid and green to run her own crew.

The screen of her phone, gone black with Marcey staring off into space and being pissed off at the girl she’d fucked in high school for a while, lit up once more.

New Facebook message from: Rebecca Johnson.

Christ. Marcey exhaled. Fucking leave me alone. She drew her finger across the screen again and forced herself to keep reading. The rest of the first message was just nostalgia about college. Shit Marcey couldn’t care less about. But the new message…

Rebecca: I know I’m the last person you want to hear from after what happened in high school, but I couldn’t…not tell you. My mom’s running for district attorney in November. She’s got this new ad, it’s up on her campaign YouTube channel. You should see it.

Rebecca: I told her…I told her not to, Marcey. I hope you’ll believe me.

Marcey, perhaps out of spite, or perhaps out of a broken heart never quite healed from injuries close to a decade old now, didn’t respond to the message. She glanced over her shoulder at the cubicle that housed her manager’s desk, but the woman’s back was turned and she appeared to be on the phone. Emboldened, Marcey navigated to the campaign YouTube channel.

Johnson for DA, the autoplay ad began, before going into all of the many accomplishments of Assistant District Attorney Linda Johnson. She put criminals and would-be terrorists behind bars, kept criminal syndicates out of the local schools, and fought for better protection for police in officer-involved shooting incidents. It was a typical, run-of-the-mill political advertisement, Republican and abhorrent to Marcey, save for one detail: in the middle of all of it were two crude artist renderings—crude and cartoonish, but obvious to anyone who knew Marcey—of the twin mugshots of Marcey and her best friend, Darius, the day they’d gotten arrested. Their faces were superimposed over a headline from the New York Post declaring a prescription drug ring had been brought down by solid investigative work at a local charter school. It was a lie. A lie that pushed Marcey to the edge of her seat, disgust pulling her lips away from her teeth in a snarl.

Rebecca hadn’t been lying—this was bad. Shit. She had to call Darius. Shit, she had to call Darius’s lawyer. Marcey’s mind raced, but she struggled to see the end of this train of thought. It was too awful. In that moment, the moment when everything horrible running through her mind came to an end, she would know what to do. She had to envision all the possibilities, all the horrible endings, until they were spun into something—something that Marcey could work with.

Her vision blurred and her anger built. The rage of all of this. The audacity of that woman to try again. To try and take Darius’s life from him again. And to do it in the court of public opinion.

Linda Johnson—Rebecca’s horrible mother—was back. And she was set to ruin Marcey’s life in new and exciting ways.

Fuck her. Marcey’s voice was barely more than a growl. She pulled her phone toward her and opened the messaging app. There was something in her that wanted to yell at Rebecca. To cuss her out for the strife this was going to cause, but it didn’t seem worth it somehow. Marcey sighed, her teeth grinding and jaw working as she tried to get her reaction under control. She set her phone down, her resolve shaking. Just…fuuuuuuck her.

Hmm? Her cube mate pulled a headphone out of his ear. The low din of conversation was never enough to drown out the unrelenting hum of the office’s piped-in white noise. No one was saying anything.

Nothing. Marcey rolled her chair forward and replayed the advertisement, phone forgotten. Rebecca wasn’t worth it. Her mother, however, was a different story. That came with a whole lot more baggage Marcey was more than willing to unpack. It isn’t worth getting into.

Ohhhh-kay? Her cube mate shrugged and turned back to his work.

Marcey exhaled. She couldn’t tell him, not when these walls had ears. She clicked back into the Johnson for DA campaign’s YouTube profile and watched the other advertisements. None of the others mentioned her or Darius, but a few made reference to the case.

It was the case that had made ADA Johnson’s career: her redemption after the terrible Mock trial, where she couldn’t prove the guilt of a man so obviously guilty it was almost comical. Her failure and the subsequent acquittal had been all over the papers when Marcey and Darius were arrested. Marcey got off because of an exceptionally talented lawyer and a technicality. It was that, more than Rebecca’s OD and subsequent rehab, which had landed Marcey forever on ADA Johnson’s shit list. Darius hadn’t been so lucky. He’d had a good lawyer too, Devon Austin Jackson—a guy Marcey’d been meaning to see, actually, about something else. Devon needed to know about this sooner rather than later. The lawyer’d been decent, but it hadn’t been enough to make a jury of Upper West Side shitheads look past the color of Darius’s skin and the nature of the crime. He had to do the maximum. He was lucky he’d been only sixteen at the time.

She opened her email and started typing. She could tell him this way, in e-mail, and avoid so many of the complicated feelings that came with articulating the emotions of this in person. But it wouldn’t be enough. It was going to have to come out. She was going to have to go into his office and sit across his desk from him and tell him that her goddamn ex’s mom was set to fuck up Darius’s upcoming parole hearing by running for public office.

Marcey frowned, her lips pursing. Wasn’t this slander? Her record wasn’t sealed, and it was only by the good grace of nepotism that she’d landed this job at all. But Johnson shouldn’t be able to use her picture—even a crude likeness. Not without Marcey’s explicit consent.

Her face stared back at her from the paused video. She looked haunted, eyes sunken and hollow. Her hair was sticking up from her school braid, her scowl deep and unflinching in the artist’s rendering.

Marcey closed the e-mail window and sat back, fingers knitting together in a bridge over her stomach. This was a nightmare scenario. What the fuck was she going to do? The picture was all wrong. She’d been crying that day. Not scowling. It had been a nightmare. She, just sixteen, was saved serious jail time, while Darius, her best friend and confidant, was sent away for eight years. The look on Darius’s face as the verdict had come down was one Marcey would never forget as long as she lived. She’d begged ADA Johnson in a private meeting room to save Darius before the verdict was read. She’d told the truth: Darius was the only one she’d come out to.

You came out to my daughter.

That’s different, Marcey had insisted. She’s…she and I understand each other.

I don’t understand her preoccupation with you. Or your continued presence in her life.

Don’t out me, Marcey had begged. She couldn’t beg not to be punished for her crimes, that wouldn’t have been right—she’d been caught fair and square—but this, this was different. This she couldn’t stomach. He’s the only one who knows—outside of Becca. Darius was the only person who had accepted her without question no matter what she told him. He was good people like that. The mess with Becca and the OD and Johnson deciding to gun for Marcey and Darius both—that had been her fault. She’d enabled Becca. She’d let it become a thing when she should have stopped it. Darius just happened to be with her at the time; they shouldn’t send him away for something that was all Marcey’s fault. She couldn’t do that to him. She couldn’t.

Johnson had looked down her nose at Marcey and asked her why she had allowed Darius to confess to the crime if he was the only one who loved and supported her. The condescension, and the powerlessness of that moment, still haunted Marcey. Johnson wasn’t going to change her recommendation to the judge just because Marcey was a lost little lesbian. She had just wanted to hear Marcey beg for leniency. She’d relished it. Darius was sent away, and Marcey had been left to deal with a homophobic mother and a pseudo-private school that saw her as a problem because of her association with Darius and because of her sexuality.

Marcey was alone then. Truly alone, trapped in a hostile environment at every turn. It had never gotten any easier.

When Marcey was young, she used to fantasize about what sort of person she would become later in life. Her pediatrician had asked her every year, in his kind way, what she wanted to be when she grew up. The answers varied. For a while, she’d wanted to be a mermaid, and then a skateboarder. There was a brief period at around six years old when she wanted, more than anything else, to be Mulan. As she grew older, Marcey had stopped having easy answers for her doctor. She would look away, mutter some sullen teenage excuse about not wanting to box herself in, and find herself wanting.

She went to school for statistics, because she was good at numbers and liked the probabilities and how easily data could be manipulated. She took the numbers like her mind took possibilities and weighed them to see the best possible choice. Marcey told herself she went to school for statistics so she would never become one, but it wasn’t quite true. She already was one, and not one trending in the positive. She wanted to get better at weighing odds, to avoid the bad choices that had gotten her into the situations that plagued her still.

What did she want with her life? What did any kid with a fairly public—though ostensibly sealed—juvenile record want? What did any kid who’d suffered through high school because their best friend was ripped away from them want out of life? Anonymity. To be left in that vacuum of alone they’d dumped her in.

In a single thirty-second sound bite, Linda Johnson’s ad tore down the rickety framework of lies and half-truths she’d told her coworkers about her past and her childhood. Marcey never outright lied to her peers—she just had no compunction about omitting the truth. If they really wanted to know, they could use Google as well as anyone else.

By the time the ad finished playing for the third time, Marcey’s mind was made up. She picked up her phone and shot a message back to Rebecca.

Marcey: Thanks for telling me. It’s good to hear from you. If you’re smart you’ll lose my number.

There was no way she could continue to allow this to stand. She had to get the ad off the air. By any means necessary. And if she couldn’t, she was going to destroy Assistant District Attorney Linda Johnson’s career before the election in a very public way. Rebecca and whatever feelings Marcey still had for her be damned.

Rebecca: What are you going to do?

Marcey Daniels has successfully blocked Rebecca Johnson.

Marcey set down her phone and sat back. The sigh on her lips tasted wrong, like the ill-fitting clothes she wore and the curling idea of revenge in her stomach.

Only…she had no idea how to exact a revenge like that. She wasn’t a criminal, thanks to her mother putting herself into debt to pay for the lawyer that had gotten her off. She wasn’t even a lawyer; she was a kid with a degree in math who saw patterns in things.

She minimized the internet window and exhaled quietly. Her computer wallpaper, a photograph of herself a handful of years younger than her twenty-five years, alongside her best friend, winked into view. They were standing in front of a Starbucks, heads thrown back to catch snowflakes on their tongues. Darius was clad in all black, a cream-colored hat perched awkwardly on top of his just-trimmed fade. Marcey’s bright red scarf matched her cheeks. She was wearing Darius’s heavy winter jacket. It was one of the last photographs of them happy and together. Rebecca and everything that had come after that awful party…was all a bad memory now. But this—this moment was pure.

Marcey stared at it for a long time, heart warm with the memory of that day. His monthly visitation was soon. The first Friday in March. Marcey was going up to visit him again then. Maybe he’d have an answer about Johnson, the mysterious package she’d received a few weeks before, or what to do about the fact that they couldn’t talk to each other but in code. Marcey hated the slog of going in and out of a high-security prison once a month. She hated the never-ending guilt.

In a way, she was grateful for the forward thrust of the early stages of revenge.

Anything was better than dwelling in the past.

Marcey didn’t get the chance to drive much. It came with living in New York, squatting in the spare bedroom of her mother’s already too-small apartment. She relished the opportunity to get behind the wheel and out on the open road, driving up I-90 toward Albany and then on to Canada. Driving was freedom, divorcing herself from the concrete jungle of the city and pulling her into the rolling Adirondack foothills north of the capitol.

Nestled deep amid the forested mountains was a tiny village that played host to the prison where Darius was locked away. Called Dannemora, it hardly evoked the hardened home of some of the worst criminals from the state of New York, picturesque as it gathered at the edge of a national forest that shared the village’s name.

ADA Johnson had made sure to send him to the scariest prison she could arrange: Clinton Correctional. The name meant nothing if you weren’t from New York, but if you were, and you had any passing brushes with the law, you feared the place. It was where they sent the worst of the worst criminals, where they locked them away and tossed the key into the Hudson.

Or whatever dramatic shit they say on Law & Order, Marcey mused pensively.

Marcey had spent the past few weeks stewing about ADA Johnson’s political ad while in meetings with Darius’s lawyer. He had to figure out if the ad was illegal, and they’d spent hours debating what to do with the strange package that had arrived on her doorstep. She gripped the steering wheel of her rented Hyundai, trying to focus on the drive. On the seat next to her, sticking out of her purse, was a small black Moleskine notebook. Marcey glanced at it before training her eyes back on the road. That was another mess that would only serve to distract her. She and Devon weren’t in agreement about the best course of action. It was starting to snow; the road was slick and the prison was fast approaching. Her mind couldn’t wander now.

When she sat down across from Darius thirty minutes later, she barely took the time to take in his gaunt appearance and the dark circles under his eyes. His skin was dry when he grasped her hand and pulled her in for the one hug she was allowed at the beginning of the visit. They’d kept him in here longer than they should have—some technicality his previous parole hearing had invalidated the whole process. Marcey didn’t want it to happen again. What Johnson wanted to do could change that, somehow keep Darius locked away forever. She couldn’t look at him, not without telling him the awful truth. He had to know—it would impact him too.

Marcey swallowed, looking at her hands to avoid Darius’s serious brown eyes, and spoke quickly. Linda Johnson’s using our mugshots in a campaign ad. Devon says it’s legal and we can’t really do shit about it, and now the entire world knows that I was involved in your arrest and that you’re about to come up for parole again.

He stared at her. You’re joking.

Nope. Marcey paused, forcing herself to look up. She sighed, pushing her hair out of her eyes. Well, that’s stretching it a little. They’re cartoonish renderings, but they’re very obviously based on our mugshots. I didn’t want to ask anyone, but I think if your ma or mine saw it they’d know. Same with anyone who knows us. That’s what worries me.

Man. Darius scrubbed at his face. You got off for this bullshit.

I shouldn’t have, Marcey said, spitting it out quickly. She always did. He resented her freedom enough as it was. There was nothing she could do about it either, other than be quicker to the punch of her white guilt.

He glared at her. Don’t start. He sat back. Devon doesn’t think it’s libel or something?

Not as far as any research can figure. I’ve spent the past couple weeks stewing about it. Talking at him about it. He’s looked into it, off the clock. Basically, Devon says it’s a matter of public record. And apparently the Super PAC who paid for it isn’t known for their scruples. I’m sure they think I’m locked up somewhere too. Marcey pressed her hand flat on the table before them. I’m not sure what this means for your parole hearing.

Probably means I’m fucked. Darius’s first appearance before the parole board was scheduled for May, when the campaign would be really heating up prior to the summer campaign season. Marcey’d checked those dates too. There was no way to get the ad pulled without a lengthy court battle. Darius rubbed at the back of his head and looked away. Fuck, man. He looked like he was on the verge of crying.

All Marcey wanted to do was reach out, draw him into a hug, and not let him go. He was her best friend; he knew her secrets and she his. She looked down at her hands, useless on the table. They weren’t allowed to touch. The distance opened like a great gash across the space between them. I’m sorry.

It never sounded like enough.

Devon’s pretty convinced she wouldn’t show up in person, I guess because of the campaign. He called me and told me that. This musta been why. Said we’d get some green-eared kid who’d recommend parole and I’d be out in June. Darius seemed to crumple in his tan scrubs. His gaze met Marcey’s. Man. If she’s using this case as a cornerstone for her campaign, she’s gotta show up. My ma’s gonna have a fit. There were tears in his eyes, borne, Marcey suspected, of frustration. She wanted me to come home last June. It’s been more than eight years.

What if there was, say, a way we could get back at her?

We’d be stupid. His tone was sharp. There’s no way we can do that, Mar. The most you could do is get that group in trouble for using your picture in an advertisement. I got no rights. And it won’t fly. If they’ve done it, it means it’s probably legal, no matter how dubious.

True. Marcey bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder. The guard at the far end of the room was distracted by a young mother’s squalling child and not paying her much attention. Marcey leaned forward, her tone dropping and growing urgent. These visits were monitored. She had to be careful. But I think I might have found something that could help.

He tilted his head, skeptical. What?

I got this book in the mail. I can’t show it to you. I left it in the car. But I think it might be the key. Marcey glanced over her shoulder. You know that guy, the one that Johnson wasn’t able to convict right before our case, when the papers were calling for her to be fired and sanctioned by the New York State Bar because of how it ended? The book belonged to him. Marcey prayed Darius remembered. It was so long ago, and she couldn’t tell him much else about the strange encounter and series of disagreements she’d had with Devon Austin Jackson about what to do with the book. Darius’s lawyer evidently knew the man. He knew everything about him and about the contents of the book before Marcey could even ask about it. He knew and he’d sat there and smiled at her and told her that Linda Johnson was well within her rights about the ad and had asked what she was going to do about it before implying other people were looking for the book as well.

Are you sure, Mar?

There’s a story here, Dar. A connection. I just have to pick at it… She leaned forward, her fingers gripping the edges of the table. I want to know what it is.

It was a lie. Marcey knew what it was, but she couldn’t say it here and they both knew it.

At first, Darius didn’t say much at all, sitting hunched over in his tan scrubs. Frowning, Marcey took him in then, saw how the years in this place had shaped him into someone far different from the baby-faced kid she’d cared so much about as a teen. His hair was getting longer, which Marcey liked, and his face was hollow now—it bore the weight of all he’d been through.

I don’t want you doing anything that’d mess up the parole hearing. Darius’s eyes took on a resigned look. Everyone knew there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell to get out a few years early. Then that bullshit happened last year and I got stuck for another year. If you go and fuck it up for me, Mar, I don’t think— He trailed off, but the implication was clear. It wasn’t Marcey’s place to do this for him. Don’t follow up with this.

But—

His expression hardened. Take your guilt and shove it. Don’t. Fuck up your own life.

It could ruin her, if she’s connected to someone like that.

Is it worth my freedom? Darius slammed his hand on the table. A guard looked over at them, one hand on his belt. "Everyone knows she wanted you more than she wanted me. Because of Rebecca. She offered me immunity. She offered me freedom, Marcey, if I gave you up. I never said shit. Now she’s making us look like cartoon villains to make her career."

Career… Marcey snatched her hand away from the table, getting to her feet.

Where are you going? he demanded, half rising. We still have fifteen minutes.

I just thought of something, something that I think will help you when you get paroled.

Marcey, I told you no! If you look into that guy—that case—you’ll poke the bear, and she’ll come for you. Then what will you do?

Fight back, I suppose. Marcey sat back down. I want to do this for you.

I don’t need your fucking savior complex. From across the room, the guard gave Darius a stern look, and he scowled at the guard before nodding to Marcey. "You don’t need to save me. I can save myself, convince the parole board I should be let out. The ad is damaging, yes, but it will be a hell of a lot worse if you poke the freaking bear."

Marcey hung her head. She’d known he wouldn’t want her help. Her mind was already back on the book, thinking hard about the contents and the thin threads of connection between its author and the letter he’d sent, and how it all could be tied back to ADA Johnson. That connection couldn’t be ignored, no matter how risky it was to Darius. If this was the same guy, as Devon claimed he was, then the risk of possibly turning over some stones to rattle Johnson’s campaign wasn’t such a bad idea, even if it would make Darius angry.

I won’t, she promised. It was a lie that slid easily from her tongue. She had to do this. For him more than for herself. If it hurt him to get to a better outcome, so be it. The drive to act anyway, and do what she felt was right, it hit her hard and settled in her stomach. Darius would understand. It’s snowing like crazy outside and the eastern half of the state’s under some sort of winter storm watch. I want to get on the road before we get upgraded to a blizzard.

He nodded, clearly not quite following.